X. Benedict

Yes, they would. Here's the thing, ticket sales are unpredictable, and Sabres have to have a schedule to raise revenue by virtue of being in the bottom tier, but if the plan they submit to the players gets approved, but it doesn't actually work, they have still fulfilled their obligation to the players. Now PA seems to think that the Sabres could simply ignore their obligation to have a plan to increase revenues, (we sucked and it feels like an insult) but the players won a hammer in the CBA which amounts to a club financial takeover - 49.3 d C - paraphrase - if the Oversight Commitee thinks the Sabres plan to raise revenue is simply a joke - it can appoint a 3rd party to run the consumer and business sales side of the team. So PA is right in thinking Black could simply ignore this, but then Black would no longer be controlling Team sales decisions. A 3rd party appointee would. Think about it, 50% of Sabres sales belong to the NHL players union. The players negotiated a way to Guarantee that clubs simply didn't try to freeze or lower their portion of revenue streams. Imagine this scenario, because we sucked this year and last year, the Sabres decide to sell 10000 season tickets for $1 to its most loyal fans. It is conceivable. Pegula is rich, right? But the players cut of that revenue would be only $5000. They share the gate. But that is like the old joke about the cheating husband asking his wife to sell the classic Porsche so they can split the money in a divorce. She sells it to a neighborhood teen kid for $10, and mails her husband a check for $5 with a note that says "here's your half, ."

Article 49.

No, the obligation IS written. The how isn't. They Sabres have to have a plan to raise revenue. (it could conceivably be by other methods. A Personal Seat Licence perhaps? Yikes) The Sabres have to follow the agreed plan even if it the plan doesn't actually raise more revenue. What you are confusing (again) is the good faith obligation to have a plan to raise revenue and act on it, and the baroque incentive which Fehr had written into the CBA to get small market teams to vote to break the deadlock in the lockout negotiations. There is no clause in the CBA to opt out of the obligation to have a viable plan to increase year on year revenue, the revenue they share 50/50 with the players union. Remember the players went from 57% revenue sharing in the previous CBA to 50% in this one(a net loss) , provided that there was a strategy to raise more revenue each year. The Sabres have to qualify for revenue sharing because of the players, not because of the incentives.

So who do you want as coach?

No. But for small markets, they are the major source of HRR. The players aren't likely to approve any plan without a ticket bump. Expect them to go up every year. And this is it. The CBA is fundamentally a revenue sharing agreement with the players. (not with other Clubs) It was the players idea to add incentives to revenue sharing to make the owners more likely to vote for it, it doesn't relieve them of obligations to honor the contract with the players and to increase year on year revenues.

They do. They have to submit a plan every year to raise revenues to share with the players. Even though the obligation is incentivized, there is no way to opt out in good faith.

We are going to imagine the CBA is optional again this too. I'm out.

Interesting thought, but this roster isnt close to finished, and Mike Babcock has never been a scout. IF Babcock leaves Detroit it will not be because he wants Hollands job it will be because of how Holland has done his job. Detroit needs to rebuild its blueline and geriatric core or the best outlook is to be stuck with a perennially middling roster. If Babcock comes to Buffalo it will be to work with Murray, not to surplant him.

Cool. Flames and wild.

Fran?

Gas up the Pegula-copter and bring him in.

You can't really know until you kiss, there could be sparks?

It definitely isn't a public trust. And by that I mean, by definition. It just isn't. It has an owner. He could sell it tomorrow. The person that buys it could resell it the next day. And a third person on the third day. Like it or not, other than the contract that a season ticket implies and only if you hold one - The National Hockey League owes you nothing. Honestly, I haven't been following the Bills this off-season.

Usually the roster fills as the tourney goes. As teams exit the playoffs in N. America, players join.

:lol:

Yep. It is entertainment. Soap operas for men. I'm not claiming there isn't an economic impact, sure there is. But is it really that different from the Buffalo Philharmonic, Shea's, Kleinehan's. and other ticketed venues? Economically speaking, not really, only different scales.

Salaries haven't handcuffed the Sabres. Lack of talent has.

It seems I see more people are implying this, rather than somebody should be accountable for a homicide.

You would think so. Tough to ride a 35 year old goalie for 65 games.

If the Sabres were Kate Upton. PA would be the one telling us that Kate hasn't been on the Sports Illustrated cover 5 out of the last 7 years. That her best pictures have been photo-shopped, and that her advertisements for Game of War are a major distraction to her modelling career, and that her looks won't last, and that........ In many ways he would be right.

Sports is entertainment - it really doesn't require a political level of scrutiny as if it were a public trust. But what I do wonder is why the NEWS hasn't transitioned to more things like this: http://www.tsn.ca/off-season-game-plan-buffalo-sabres-1.267947 It seems Scott Cullen did some pretty good work without the now familiar complaints that the team isn't helping reporters write their stories. Cover the league. Cover how other teams rebuilt. Cover the available free agents. Cover the available coaches. Ask McClellan directly if he is interested in the Buffalo job. . It seems plain to me that without the season ending league-wide many of the bigger questions don't have answers yet. The obvious answer is the team needs to get better at every position. That can be done in a statement without a presser.

Analytical miasma. I'm totally stealing that phrase this afternoon in a conference.

+1000

All our goalies have benefitted from Terry's cryogenic program this year. Miller, sadly, will continue to age. He's past the time-preservation horizon.

No. It's all his. He decided to get old. And injured.